When does the 10-blue-links page stop being the default? One forecast says 2028 to 2030
A forecast puts a date on the thing that everyone in search is focused on: when the ranking results page stops being the default destination.
Driving the news: In the Search Engine Journal article, the author believes the ranked result page will no longer be Google’s default response to user queries between 2028 and 2030, first in the US, then in the UK and the EU a year or more later.
The nuance (important): The author also says this is “a forecast, not a finding.” It’s important to clarify that the ranking results page doesn’t completely go away, but is “demoted to one step away,” where you can still reach it on purpose, but it’s no longer the default destination. The author’s company also measures AI visibility, so he has a financial interest in a smaller SERP.
My take: I believe the general direction is correct. The specific date is a best guess. No one can truly sell you an exact year. There are two elements to consider:
- The shift, or the mechanism, of AI answering the queries of users and becoming the default surfacing option is something that we can observe and measure.
- As for the timing, when it crosses 50% of queries, is up to Google, the courts, and user behavior which is difficult to predict and does not occur on a strict schedule.
Why it matters: Knowing the specific year is not important to developing your plan of action. You should work towards having your page ranked to be among the cited sources so you may be selected to be in the answers. When the shifts occur is unknown, it may be 2028, or it may be 2031.
The bottom line: The date may be unknown, so plan for the direction, not the date. Teams that wait for an exact year will be optimizing a page people have already stopped landing on.
